The Gift by Marcel Mauss
“There is no such thing as free lunch.” To this, Mauss would add ‘free gift‘ For him, free gift is an oxymoron. A gift comes with three obligations: to give, to receive, and to reciprocate. A person must give, and the other must receive, and give back something of equal, if not greater, value.
Prima facie, gift loses all its meaning because it demands repayment. Conventional wisdom says that a gift represents a well-wishing desire of a party that expects no repayment from the other party. It is an expression of intimacy and above all, selflessness.
We must lose our modern prejudices to understand the significance of gifts. Mauss surveys and compares the idea of gifts in several cultures and communities (Polynesia, Melanesia, Northwest America) and arrives to the conclusion that gift represents a debt of giving oneself to the other party.
For example, in the Polynesian culture, there is a ‘hau’, magical spirit representing the giver, residing inside the gift. The recipient must give the gift to another party because he cannot own the ‘hau’ forever, otherwise it will bring bad luck and disaster. In other words, the ‘debt’ is not the cool calculating economic repayment in nowadays sense. It is much richer insofar it represents the giving of self to someone else, who should recompense this giving with something greater. In more graphic details, it is like Antonio did give his pound of flesh to Shylock. He literally partakes part of himself to the recipient.What can the recipient give back in return for that pound of flesh?
